Michael Wang, "Lifeforms"

Why It Matters

Wang’s framing of extinct‑in‑the‑wild species as curated artifacts challenges architects and cultural institutions to embed conservation into design, fostering interdisciplinary solutions to biodiversity loss.

Key Takeaways

• Harvard GSD promotes interdisciplinary events linking art, architecture, ecology.
• Michael Wang explores “extinct‑in‑the‑wild” species as cultural artifacts.
• Conservation often relies on cultivation, turning nature into curated objects.
• Human actions simultaneously cause species loss and enable their artificial survival.
• Curatorial care can merge art preservation with species conservation strategies.

Summary

The evening’s talk, part of Harvard’s Arts Thursdays series, featured conceptual artist Michael Wang discussing his project “Life Forms.” Wang, whose background spans architecture, anthropology and performance studies, used the platform to examine species classified as “extinct in the wild” and to argue that these organisms have become cultural artifacts sustained by human care.

Wang illustrated his thesis with vivid case studies: the Mexican orchid Laelia gouldiana, rescued from extinction only in greenhouse collections; the Hawaiian cliff‑flower Brighamia insignis, now sold as a houseplant after its pollinator vanished; the Wulai azalea preserved beside a flooded reservoir; the captive‑bred Hawaiian crow; and the Barbary lion displayed in a private zoo. Each example reveals how human interventions both precipitate loss and create artificial habitats that keep the species alive.

He framed these narratives through the lens of curation, noting that “cura” means care. By treating living organisms as objects of museum conservation—requiring specialized preservation techniques—art institutions can extend their stewardship to biodiversity. Wang’s accompanying sequoia time‑lapse film underscored the slow, imperceptible growth of life forms, reinforcing the urgency of rethinking ecological responsibility as an artistic and design practice.

The talk signals a shift for architects, designers, and cultural institutions: ecological stewardship must be integrated into creative workflows. Recognizing species as curated cultural assets encourages interdisciplinary collaborations that blend aesthetic innovation with concrete conservation outcomes, reshaping how society values and protects the natural world.

Original Description

Artist Michael Wang will discuss his work at the intersection of nature and technology. He will talk about his efforts to expand the media available for art, sharing works that engage living organisms, viruses, pollutants, and radioactive materials. Many works emerge at the juncture of natural and technological systems, asking questions such as: Can a river become a machine, a species a cultural product, or a swamp a sculpture?

Wang will focus on works that address the natural origins of modern energy, complicate conversations around extinction and conservation, and explore emerging relationships between the planetary and the cosmic. He will close the talk with a reading of his Manifesto of Photosynthesism—a call for an aesthetics of the carbon negative—accompanied by a new video created in collaboration with landscape architect and digital artist Aidan Ackerman.

Speaker:

Michael Wang uses systems that operate at both regional and planetary scales as media for art, addressing climate, ecology, extraction, and capital. His works include Extinct in the Wild, a project onspecies that exist only under human care; 10000 li, 100 billion kilowatt-hours, which harnessed Shanghai’s hydropower-fueled electric grid to create a frozen facsimile of the glaciers at the origin of the Yangtze river; First Forest, a Carboniferous forest installed in a disused coal-gas plant; and, Carbon Copies, an exhibition linking the production of artworks to the release of greenhouse gases—envisioning all artists as “air artists.” Wang was awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant, and his work was the subject of solo exhibitions at Prada Rong Zhai, Shanghai (2022), LMCC’s Arts Center at Governors Island, New York (curated by the Swiss Institute, 2019) and the Fondazione Prada, Milan (2017). His work was also included in Planetary Peasants at Kunstmuseum Moritzburg Halle (2025), Elevation 1049 in Gstaad, Switzerland (2023), the 13th Shanghai Biennale (2021), Manifesta 12 Palermo (2018), and the XX Bienal de Arquitectura y Urbanismo in Valparaíso (2017).

00:00 Introduction by Sarah Whiting

05:53 Lecture by Michael Wang

59:30 Reading of Manifesto of Photosynthesism

01:05:11 Q+A